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Shortly after the publication in 1963 of the book Mundo Quino, the first graphic humor book by this Argentine cartoonist, Joaquín Lavado was asked to design a family of characters in order to promote the Mansfield electrical appliances from the firm Siam Di Tella in a newspaper strip – all with names beginning with M—.
The girl is called Mafalda —for one of the characters in the novel Dar la cara, by David Viñas—, but the advertising campaign never saw the light and Quino kept his baby in the drawer.
It is finally a few months later, when Quino is asked to publish a strip in the weekly Primera Plana, that Mafalda becomes newsprint and begins her career of fame.
2. Mafalda lived in San Telmo
Little was known about the home of the Mafalda family, apart from the fact that she lived with her little brother Guille and his parents in department E, in a building where her friend Felipe also lived.
The Mafalda sculpture in San Telmo was inaugurated in 2009
But not everyone outside of Buenos Aires knows that that building existed —And it still exists— in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of San Telmo, at 371 Chile Street, very close to Quino’s home.
“Mafalda lived here”, reads a plaque in tribute in the building.
Quino was also inspired by a friend’s father’s bakery to draw the warehouse by Don Manolo.
Today, on the corner of Chile and Defensa streets, a life-size sculpture of Mafalda awaits the arrival of tourists sitting on a bench and has become one of the main attractions of the neighborhood.
3. A book “for adults”
– I’ll explain: millibars are a measure of pressure. Depending on the atmosphere, it is said that there is a pressure of so many milli …
– Sorry dad, I asked you about the millibars; not by the military, ”Mafalda replies.
The always critical Mafalda did not sit too well with some sectors.
Mafalda’s books have been translated into at least 30 languages
In Spain, Franco’s censorship forced publishers to place a strip on the cover of Mafalda’s first book declaring it a work “For adults.”
Mafalda also had to face censorship in other countries, like Bolivia, Chile or Brazil.
“From the outset I just had it,” Quino tells about censorship and his early work as a graphic humorist.
“They told me: ‘Kid, jokes against the family, not the military, not naked. I was born with self-censorship.”
4. Felipe really existed, and lived in Cuba
Mafalda’s best friend loves to fantasize, play the Lone Ranger, and put off homework for as long as possible.
But perhaps what most defines Felipe are his rabbit teeth and his long face, with disheveled hair.
Felipe is inspired by a real life character
Those same factions are those of the Argentine journalist Jorge Timossi, who worked for the Cuban news agency Prensa Latina and was a good friend of Quino.
“When I was in Algeria the Mafalda’s first notebook“, Timossi said in an interview with the newspaper Perú21 before dying in 2011.
“I saw him and I thought, here’s something familiar. Shortly after, in Chile, I got an address from him and I sent him a business card of mine in which I put: Quino, confess, son of a p … And by return mail , I got a poster with Felipito, which said: “It is my turn to be like me.”
5. Mafalda even in the soup
Mafalda is everywhere. And not just because her books have been translated into 30 languages.
Mafalda murals adorn the Buenos Aires metro
In the neighborhood of Colegiales, in Buenos Aires, there is a Plaza Mafalda. And in the one in San Telmo is the sculpture of the girl in real size, by the artist Pablo Irrgang.
But also underground there is a tribute to the strip. At the Peru Subway station, in the Argentine capital, there is a mural of “The World According to Mafalda.”
And in the Paris metro, at the Argentine station, Mafalda observes attentively from a mural figures of science, politics or the arts of Argentina, such as Jorge Luis Borges.
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